Natgas exporter group sees no need to cut output

CAIRO, June 1 (Reuters) - Members of a major gas exporters
group said on Wednesday there was no need to consider cutting
output of natural gas and any extra supply in the market would
soon be consumed by growing demand.

Rising output of shale gas from the United States in the
past few years had added to plentiful supplies and helped keep
prices relatively low, but that dynamic has started to change.

Demand from emerging markets has reduced excess supplies,
and Japan has become more reliant on gas since the shutdown of
some nuclear plants in the wake of the Fukushima crisis.

"Our assessment is that there is an economic recovery
around the world, and there is an extra demand for natural
gas,"Algerian Energy and Mines Minister Youcef Yousfi told
reporters in Cairo.

"We don't think that for the short term or even the medium
term there will be glut, oversupply."

He said the medium term meant "two to three years".

He was in Cairo for Thursday's meeting of the Gas Exporting
Countries Forum (GECF), a developing but still loose collection
of gas powers including Russia and Iran, the world's top two
reserve holders, and Qatar, the biggest exporter of Liquefied
Natural Gas (LNG). Algeria and others are also members.

Although GECF members have said they do not seek to create
a forum like OPEC to influence commodity prices by raising or
lowering output, consumers are nervous they could increase
control over the gas market.

Asked if the group would consider cutting output to prop up
prices, Yousfi said: "It is not on the agenda."

Russian Deputy Energy Minister Anatoly Yanovsky echoed
this, adding he had long said the GECF "is not a gas OPEC."

"Gas and oil markets are quite different, and this is why
no one tries at our meetings to regulate the market by quotas
or by some cuts. It has never been the subject of discussion."

Asked whether he believed the market was balanced,
Yanovsky, who was speaking through a translator, said:

"Now it is the buyer's market ... How long will it last? No
one can say. But always the buyer's market gives way to the
seller's market. In the long run, there is... balance."

Bank of America Merrill Lynch said in a report that the
global gas glut would soon vanish because of rising opposition
to nuclear power in the aftermath of the Fukushima crisis and a
dearth of new supply.

As recently as late last year, the International Energy
Agency had been forecasting that capacity would outpace supply
and stay above demand for a decade.

Unlike oil markets, long-term contracts are a major feature
of natural gas trade, making short-term supply cuts to
influence prices more difficult. Ministers said such contracts
would remain and would help ensure development of additional
supply.

"We think these long-term contracts are absolutely
necessary in order to make more investments in upstream for
natural gas, exploration and production," said Yousfi when
asked about the future of long-term, oil-indexed contracts.

Yanovsky said: "I do not think that the long-term contracts
in the gas industry sphere will be broken down."

He added that such contracts would ensure development of
infrastructure and new exploration.
(Reporting by Edmund Blair; editing by David Sheppard and
David Gregorio)